"They mention the names of our scientists in their [United Nations] resolutions and provide the Zionist dogs with a copy and tell them to kill," President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said in a speech in Mazandaran province, according to the semi-official Fars news agency

The head of that nuclear program, Ali Akbar Salehi, said during the burial ceremony Shahriari, one of his former students, that the killing was "part and parcel of a carrot-and-stick policy" of the West meant to put pressure on Iran.

"They used all their capacity, for example resolutions, sanctions and political pressures," Saeed Jalili, who will lead the negotiation team next week in Geneva, told state television. "The fact that today they are resorting to assassination shows their desperation and shows that they have reached a dead-end."

-- Los Angeles Times

Photo: Women mourn over the casket of slain Iranian scientist Majid Shahriari, who was killed in what police describes as a bomb attack on Monday. Credit: Mohsen Rezai / Mehr News Agency